Goofiness Explored

Today is a trip back into Shadows of Amun. I have four named roles with complicated tasks. However, I am thinking of family.

My mom wrote me a lovely e-mail earlier this week, so I just wrote back. It isn't a paper letter, yet, more likely to get a reply. Things are getting stressful back home. Both my parents are in poor health. My dad has limited mobility, and his PCP thinks he might need surgery to improve things. My mother is recovering from extensive surgery and will have more scheduled. As a result, my grandmother has moved in to my cousin Cheryl's house. Cher is about 10 years my senior and remained in the area, so that makes sense. She is also a bit high-strung, so it also doesn't make sense. I do not know how it is working, but my mother fears it isn't. My grandmother may need the care of a nursing home soon. That is one of those things... hard to face.

In all this, my niece is having a home-school graduation party on Sunday, and my sister is having a home-teacher retirement party. She is headed towards empty-nester time, and my niece has the world open to her, but lives in books. I love my niece.

In all this backdrop, I think on my life and wonder why I punched out, left home, and didn't really look back. I am out of the equation because I live over an hour away, practically in another state or another world in my provincial family's thoughts. There is a meme of the prodigal son... and part of me identifies with it, always has, and I don't know why. I love my family, and am deeply defined by them. But there is this drive to live my own life... college - Boston - Pilsen - now Chelmsford - it makes little sense. I never hated where I was from, nor my family.

It mystifies Bess. She talks with her folks on an almost daily basis. Usually small check ins, and it gets frustrating, but it is how they work. Me, I talk to them every other week? But when we talk it is an hour on the phone.

And I think about my kids. They are happy, for the most part, and well-balanced and loving. I wonder how often I will talk with them?

Time moves on. There is no denying that. I just worry I'll regret the movements I never noticed.

More anon...

Had a good Thanksgiving, despite traffic and poorly devised plans which mostly involved me being stubborn and saying WE-CAN-DO-IT! We did manage, although we were late to the party in New Jersey. Overall, I love that our kids have a sense of the extended family. It doesn’t hurt that I like Bess’ family a lot. We also saw Big Hero 6. It was awesome and I loved it. This might be one we have to own.

I spent part of yesterday (between taking calls at work) working on Ondrej Vlk’s family history. I have a family tree and a few additional stories. I hope to submit this addition by the end of the week. It is curious because I seem to be painting him much more sympathetic than I originally envisioned. This might be because I have already played him longer than expected? In any case, I like his background more now, and some of his history that he has been telling people might be exaggerations.

In similar LARP news, I have been poking my build for 5th Gate. Now that a teammate is taking on the role of Heart of the Warband, I am focusing on being a big damn caster. The more I play with the build, the more my card gets confusing as hell. I had hoped to keep it simple, but now I have at least two skills for each statistic and a pool of per event statistics to share on my skills just in case. It makes sense, and is a good build that will allow me to throw a lot of uncalled packets (and 3 back-up thrown weapons because at 1CP why not?) but it won’t be easy to keep track of all my skills and incants and stuff. AGAIN! If, for some reason, I pick up Heart of the Warband later, the build will be good for that as well. Most of my utility comes from having a big pool of uncalled packets. This is good by me because, on reflection, my main advantage as a packet chucker is that my throwing arm has excellent range. Being able to throw over our defensive line into a cluster of foes will be too much fun and I can enjoy doing that ALL DAY. Plus, the Necromancer header (with a slice of Dead Speaker) will provide a lot of great role-play possibilities. I suspect that I will end up taking Heart of the Warband as I build my character and we realize we need another war band, but I will let that form organically in game. It is a relief to dial back down to two headers. Also? The off-hand weapon skill for the Necromancer does not specify the type of weapon being held, just the material (bone). This means I could be a caster with a pole-arm or a two-hander, which, you know, is a complete weapon form. Not that staff isn’t, but pole arm is even cooler… and bone? If I do this right, it will look AWESOME!

Cottington Woods is coming up, and I am excited for the ball. I ordered a tailcoat on EBAY and it is not quite right. It is too nice for HAY! So, I am stuck with the dilemma, do I mess it up a bit and add patches, or do I keep it for other LARP uses? Part of me just wants to make HAY! a much more awkward coat. Maybe I can make a quick mock up for a tailcoat, and make it in some rough fabric, and use that mock up for HAY! It is a thought. Who knew doing too well on Ebay was a problem?

With the holidays coming up, I am horribly off for getting presents. I have a few ideas, but I will need to wait for my next payday (Dec 9) to pursue these. My budgeting in 2014 has been HORRIBLE! I must get this under control next year.

More anon…

So, sometime Sunday I lost my wallet. I had just paid for pizza and then, it sort of disappeared. The next day, Bess asked me to check the pants I was wearing, and I did. Luckily, I had no need of it, not really.

Well, I just found it, um, erm... ...in the pants I was actually wearing when I paid for the pizza, not the comfy ones I changed into immediately after.

I have the best, wisest wife in the entire world and I clearly don't deserve her.

Also,I am way to wired for the chamomile I just had. What is going on with that?

More anon...